A gay escapade

If you happen to be rich, and you feel like a night's entertainment, you can pay for a gay escapade

If you happen to be rich 

I was back in Auckland, a week and a day after my original arrival. This time I didn’t have jet lag to contend with so I would get to experience the Auckland gay scene on a Friday night. At least now I knew not to head out too early so I wouldn’t end up sitting in an empty bar, waiting for the local gays to arrive. Having spent the afternoon wandering round a bit of Auckland I had previously failed to explore and having a late lunch, I got ready to head out. I decided I would head back to DNA Bar as out of the two places I had been, that one seemed a little nicer. It had only recently reopened and everything still seemed new and clean. They had drag shows on a Friday too and the one I had seen last time had been entertaining enough. This time round though I had the benefit of having picked up a flier so I knew that the first of the drag shows was at 11pm. I figured that would mean that around 10:30pm the place would have a half decent crowd waiting. Once again, I was wrong.

I arrived a few minutes before 10:30pm and the place was as deserted as it had been on the previous Saturday when I had arrived. There was no sign of a drag show about to start either. Luckily I spotted a guy, Alex, who I had met the previous week. We had chatted briefly after Julio (the Mexican guy I had got talking to) had introduced me to him. From our brief conversation the previous week I knew the following about Alex. He was English but had moved over to  New Zealand a while ago and was now living in Auckland permanently. I guessed he was somewhere in his late forties or early fifties (although I tend to be quite bad guessing peoples ages), was high up in his chosen profession and clearly from a very wealthy background. When I told him I was travelling and that I had a month to see New Zealand he had offered me a place to stay in Queenstown, on his yacht, provided the staff were there.

I smiled and nodded to Alex across the virtually empty room and I could see that he recognised, if not remembered me. He came across to talk to me and asked me to remind him where he knew me from. I told him we had met the previous weekend and reminded him of my name. He asked me what I had done in the intervening week and I filled him in on my travels to Whangarei. He had never been there so I told him what there was to do there (not much, other than hiking and relaxing). I asked Alex how his week had been. The biggest event in his week was an airline finally agreeing to replace the luggage of his that they had lost a few weeks before. He showed me the Louis Vuitton brochure with the luggage that he was getting to replace his lost items. One of the trunks was about the size of my flat back in London and probably cost about the same.

And you feel like a night's entertainment

Now, I’m normally not great at noticing when I am being hit on but when someone you are talking to tells the barman that you can order anything you like and he will pick up the tab all night then even I would have to be totally blind to miss those signals. If I had been the sort of person capable of selling out to a sugar daddy then this would have been the ideal time to do it. I could have easily landed myself a life (or at least a few days or weeks) of luxury, being taken to the best restaurants, spending time on a fully staffed yacht and being pampered without having to open my wallet. I am sure it would have required me to put out and that was where the plan failed. I have morals (and I didn’t find the guy attractive) so I knew that it wasn’t something that I could do, not even for a couple of weeks of luxury. I am also stubbornly independent so having accepted one drink from him to be polite I paid for my own drinks for the rest of the night. I wasn’t the only person Alex was buying drinks for and a couple of other people seemed to be taking full advantage to the point where I was embarrassed for them. Still, Alex didn’t seem to mind.

The drag show that had been due to start at 11pm duly started at 11:30pm. I’m not sure I have ever seen a drag show that started at the time it was supposed to. I guess drag queens are also drama queens and like to keep their audience waiting. I’ve never done drag, unless you count the time I was one of the ugly sisters in my junior school panto production of Cinderella. The show was very funny and was based on Glee. The highlight was one of the “Cheerios” losing a breast half way through the performance. Some of the people took it very seriously. I stayed at DNA until about 2am, chatting to Alex and some of his friends. I headed back home to get some sleep as I had booked on to a day trip for the following day and needed to be relatively awake and hangover free.

You can pay for a gay escapade

The next morning I made my way to the harbour via a coffee shop to pick up my boat which was going to take me out to Rangitoto Island. I joined the queue, finishing off my coffee as I moved slowly forward. Once at the front I gave the woman my name so that I could collect my ticket. Having got my ticket I then went and stood in another queue to board the boat. The trip out was relatively calm and we were soon on the volcanic island. There were a couple of options for my trip to Rangitoto. I could either take the boat over and then explore alone, the hike to the top of the crater and back would have filled the time I had on the island. The other option was a tractor tour, which meant hopping into a trailer pulled by a tractor to the base of the crater, walking up to the top and then being taken on a tour round the rest of the island, seeing a few points of interest before being dropped back at the dock for the last boat back.

I had decided, in the interests of seeing as much as possible, to book on to the tractor tour. I made my way off the boat to where the tractor and trailer were waiting. I looked around my fellow passengers for the tractor tour. I was probably the only one under 50. I felt decidedly lazy that I was not hiking the full route. I considered faking a limp in an attempt to justify being on the tractor but decided against it. The views from the top of the crater were stunning (and no less rewarding because I hadn’t hiked all the way there) and our guide gave us a great tour of the rest of the island. On the ferry back over I had a small snooze and only woke up when the boat got back to Auckland harbour. I had a quiet dinner and an evening in packing my case ready to head to my next stop, Whitianga, where I would be staying with my first set of New Zealand hosts.

“If you happen to be rich, and you feel like a night's entertainment, you can pay for a gay escapade” 
Lyrics from Money Song from the musical Cabaret